Sydney: Macquarie Street Mall, Liverpool, 12pm.

Melbourne: State Library, Swanston Street, 12pm.

The Socialist Equality Party and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) are sponsoring rallies in Sydney and Melbourne to oppose the preparations by the US Obama administration, backed by the Australian government, for war against Syria.

Ten years after the lies over “weapons of mass destruction” and the illegal invasion of Iraq, Washington is seeking to justify war based on unsubstantiated claims that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against civilians on August 21. The only reason that bombing is not already underway is because of the massive opposition that rapidly emerged in the UK, the US and internationally.

The intrigues and machinations now taking place in the United Nations over “disarming” Syria of chemical weapons have not stopped the threat of war, but only postponed it. The Obama administration is seeking to use the cover of the UN to manufacture a pretext for stepping-up the violent regime-change operation it has been directing in Syria for over two years.

Claims by Obama that a military strike on Syria would have only a “limited” character are lies. A much broader war is in fact being prepared that would inevitably be extended into Lebanon and against Iran. US imperialism is seeking nothing less than the domination of key regions and resources, against its Russian and Chinese geopolitical rivals, not only in the Middle East, but around the globe. The course it is pursuing threatens to trigger a catastrophic third world war.

The Australian government, under Labor’s Gillard and Rudd, and now under new Liberal-National Prime Minister Tony Abbott, has provided unconditional backing to Washington’s agenda in the Middle East and its militarist “pivot” against China in the Asia-Pacific region. A US war against Syria will inevitably involve the Australian military, most directly through the US satellite base at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory and the Australian warship based in the Persian Gulf.

The Greens and the pseudo-left organisations, Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, stand exposed as adjuncts of the imperialist war drive, supporting the US-backed Syrian rebels—who are dominated by Al Qaeda-linked, sectarian Islamist forces—and falsely portraying them as a genuine movement for democracy.

The purpose of the SEP’s October 5 rallies is not to appeal to the Obama administration, the Abbott government or the United Nations to stop the war against Syria. Such a perspective is worse than futile. The growing danger of war is the political expression of the intractable crisis of the capitalist profit system, and opposition to it must be based on this understanding.

A genuine movement against war requires a conscious struggle by the working class against capitalism and all its political defenders, on the basis of a socialist and internationalist perspective. The rallies being organised by the SEP and IYSSE are aimed at the development of just such a movement. We urge WSWS readers and SEP supporters, workers and retirees, students and unemployed, to join us in Melbourne and Sydney on October 5.

No to war against Syria!

Close Pine Gap! End the US-Australia military alliance!

Unite the international working class!